Appliances of today have a variety of components that cooperate to provide functionality for the appliance. Such variety of components encompasses both user-actuated components and appliance-actuated components. Particularly, this includes controls, controllers, processors, motors, solenoids/solenoid valves, timers, and the like, electronic circuitry/logic including memory and program instructions.
Most, if not all, of the variety of components such as those listed above utilize electricity to operate. Of these, most of the various appliance components are electronically controlled. Some components such as motors and/or solenoids require a fair amount of power to operate while electronic circuitry requires little power to operate. Additionally, the various components are not always on at the same time and thus do not always need power. At least some of the electronics and/or electronic circuitry/logic controlling the various components of the appliance, however, require some power even when the appliance is off. This is known as a standby mode.
Standby mode allows the appliance to determine if a user has actuated a particular component of the appliance while the appliance is not in use. As well, standby mode allows some power to be provided to certain components and/or electronic circuitry/logic as necessary. The standby mode/circuitry also provides the necessary power to the requisite components when user-initiation of a mode has been determined.
Standby circuitry typically utilizes transformers in some manner to provide the standby power and/or the power necessary to the appropriate component(s) when use is determined. Heretofore, the amount of power required by current appliance standby circuitry is rather high. It is desirable to reduce the amount of standby power being used by the appliance for several reasons. One reason is to reduce a user's electricity bill. Another reason is to reduce internal problems associated with the amount of power used by current standby circuitry/logic.
What is therefore needed is low power standby circuitry/logic for an appliance.